Interview with Darryl Ballantyne - Follow-up
I think Darryl covered a lot of information in the Q&A he did for mredkj.com, yet there are still a lot of unanswered questions. He has joined in on a discussion at webmaster forum geek/talk: Crackdown on lyrics sites, guitar tabs and song scores (look for user Darryl)
His posts shed some light on just how complicated it is to license lyrics for the web, and how it’s going to cause some limitations at first. If the MPA follows through on their promise to crackdown on lyrics sites, the ones that survive are going to need to reorganize how they operate - diversify, new revenue streams, etc. - in order to cover the costs of licensing the lyrics.
As for tab sites, it’s Darryl’s opinion that they won’t be given as many opportunities to license content, because they’re seen as competition to sheet music sales. There is a fundamental difference between the fan tabs community and the official sheet music business, so I hope the music industry doesn’t just dismiss tab sites as being unimportant.